Hey- That's Private!

It's no secret that Governor Walker of Wisconsin and the rest of his Republican counterparts are out to privatize public services, including education.

But can privatization really do the same work for less money?  It seems all those Governors don't really have any concrete numbers on this.  Why not?  According to Professor of Law, Ellen Dannin's 3/14/11 article:

"Some people take it on faith that the private sector always does a better job for less money than government. But the most of us deciding how to provide public service is not a matter of ideology, not a team sport. We just want to solve our federal, state, and local budget problems and provide good quality services. So, for most of us, it will come as a surprise that in many cases no effort is made to show whether a private company can do government work as well as public employees." 

Professor Dannin also wrote a paper on privatization that talks about 7 commonly held beliefs (I call them myths) about privatization and the evidence that dispels those myths.  Boy that professor Dannin is smart!  Read her paper and you'll know how to debate this with your Republican friends and family!

In her paper she lists the terrible impacts of privatization from the Cornell University Hebdon Report.

Here's the conclusion of that report:

"In conclusion, we found privatization to be, at best, a disruptive, socially destabilizing, and ultimately harmful method of cost saving. At its worst, privatization can actually increase costs, lower the quality of services, reduce public accountability, and marginalize citizen involvement in the democratic process. ... The rational solution is to seek creative alternatives to the way services are currently provided by improving the utilization of the existing workforce. The practical answer, we believe, can be found in fundamental reform of pubic sector work process through dialogue, discussion, and negotiations. This is the challenge for politicians, management officials in the public sector, public employee unions, and employees."

And past research has shown that privatization can actually hurt women workers.  Check out this 2001 research paper by Annette Bernhardt, Ph.D. and Laura Dresser, Ph.D. from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

"From a policy standpoint, there is good reason to be concerned about the continuing call for contracting out public services to the private sector. On average, public sector jobs pay better and are more likely to include pension and health benefits. When government services are privatized, womenespecially women of color and women who do not have a college educationwill likely experience significant declines in how much they earn and in their health and pension coverage. Even though, the public sector is far from a perfectly fair employer — glass ceilings and the gender gap in pay and benefits persist as in the private sector — this analysis finds that privatization, and the de-unionization that frequently accompanies it, is likely to prove detrimental to the economic welfare of women workers. "

And, by the way, as I write this Ed Shultz is also talking about privatization on his show.  Wow- great minds think alike I guess- Ed and I both had this topic on our minds today...